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Work is very important to man and work experiences have implications on other aspects of human life. The major essence of work is to obtain resources to optimize other domains of life. This demands the need to strike a balance. Flowing from the positive and negative effect of the Spill over theory, the study investigated the influence of work-life balance (WLB) on employee job commitment using JS as the mediating variable.
A cross-sectional survey design elicited the desired data from 344 employees in 4 Universities and 4 multinational companies. Path diagram analysis served as the data analysis technique.
The results show that all the family and religious lives have statistically significant negative influences on employee commitment (EMPC) while leisure and health have statistically significant positive influences on EMPC. The study thus, makes theoretical contributions.
Keywords: employee commitment, job satisfaction, work-life balance, family, health 1An individual’s inability to balance work-life often precipitates emotional and psychological problems that may infringe on his JS and ultimately his commitment and performance. A very important question that every worker needs to answer is; “do we work to live or live to work? An appropriate answer to this question will predispose the worker toward a rational consideration of WLB. (WLB) There is empirical evidence that an employee’s two most important domains are his/her work and the home (or family) and the experience at work or home almost always defines the individual’s emotional stability and/or happiness (Greenhaus et al., 2003; Wambui et al., 2017). It is reasonable to argue that an individual worker realizes himself through the work he does as well as through his capacity for self-actualization through the attainment of the very zenith of the career of his choice. However, only an emotionally stable and healthy person can have the right frame of mind for the required level of commitment for meaningful contributions to the attainment of organizational goals. To this end, an ideal self-actualization will contribute to the integration of both the work and basic aspects of life (family, personal life, community service) (Wambui et al., 2017). Securing employment in an organization should not be at the expense of an individual’s life; rather; securing a job demands that the individual maintain equilibrium by striking a balance between both work and life. Striking an equilibrium between the commitment to work and life is required for a healthy life since only a healthy person can work well.
Because of WLB’s importance to employee fulfillment, many scholars have investigated the research problem in recent times. Some of the studies include WLB and its importance of work–family and work–Health Balance (Gragnano et al., 2020), the influence of WLB and JS on the job performance of the Employees of SMEs moderated by family-supportive supervisor behaviors” (Susanto et al., 2022). The others are the influence of WLB on the self-reported health of some working adults in Europe using comparative analysis based on gender and welfare state regime (Mensah and Adjei, 2020) and WLB from the organizational context (Delecta, 2011). In addition, WLB and firm innovativeness based on male and female bosses’ strategies (Shouman et al., 2022), determinants of WLB among teachers of a government school in Sri Lanka (Umma and Zahana, 2020). Examination of the extent to which WLB, health and well-being in European welfare states can be a balancing act (Lunau et al., 2019) and the influence of JS and WLB on the job performance of female Nurses, and lastly, the influence of WLB on JS (Abdullah et al., 2022). Other empirical studies on WLB include Agha et al. (2017), Qureshi et al. (2019), Berglund et al. (2020), Ahmad and Raja (2021), Pehlivanoğlu et al. (2022), Bocean et al. (2023), Cheung G. W. et al. (2023), and Gupta and Agrawal (2023). Most of the studies used cross-sectional surveys and literature reviews as their designs. Nevertheless, not many studies have tested the mediating effect of job satisfaction on the relationship between work-life balance and employee commitment. It is also interesting to note that despite the robust literature on WLB, there is scantly any that examined how WLB relates with EMPC, neither is there any that incorporates family, religion, leisure and health in a singly framework to examine WLB. Most of the studies omitted religion (Delecta, 2011; Mas-Machuca et al., 2016; Hsu et al., 2019; Lunau et al., 2019; Gragnano et al., 2020; Mensah and Adjei, 2020; Otuya and Andeyo, 2020; Khateeb, 2021; Abdullah et al., 2022; Wijaya and Suwandana, 2022; Boakye et al., 2023; Thilagavathy and Geetha, 2023). Others omitted leisure (Delecta, 2011; Lunau et al., 2019; Mensah and Adjei, 2020; Otuya and Andeyo, 2020; Susanto et al., 2022; Wijaya and Suwandana, 2022) while Lunau et al. (2019) omitted family. Given the importance of religion and leisure to life in Nigeria, the neglect of religion and family in the consideration of work-life balance is a significant constraint. This study seeks to fill these gaps.
WLB is concerned with the deliberate equilibration of the management of a person’s personal and work life. An individual attains a WLB when he feels at ease in the management of the obligations that have to do with his/her family and job. There is a need for individuals to make efforts to equilibrate personal time with the time spent on paid work and unpaid work to permit the smooth running of employment and life. Furthermore, WLB is the power that can facilitate the enhancement of productivity and efficiency in various aspects of the work and life of an individual employee to enable the making of good decisions (Abdullah et al., 2022). A similar concept is the work-family balance, which concerns the proper integration of an individual’s work and family life to permit his active engagement in both domains. It refers to a balanced work and family life. WLB requires that an individual separates his personal and professional life and accords each domain with the desired attention to prevent attention on one domain from having negative effects on the other. If an individual gives more attention to one than the other domain receives, the other domain will likely experience negative consequences because of the inverse relationship between both domains. This underscores the need for WLB.
WLB concerns the realization of experiences of fulfillment in an employee’s different aspects of life that require different types of resources such as energy, time and commitment, which often spread across all the domains (Kirchmeyer, 2000). Work is an aspect of a man’s life and not the entirety of his life. Other concerns provide him with emotional and psychological stability, especially his family. While it is common for people to compare WLB to work-family balance, it is pertinent to note that WLB consists of many roles that an individual assumes in society (Khateeb, 2021). In the modern context, WLB is increasingly becoming challenging, owing to the difficulty in equilibrating work with other domains of life. Added to the constraint posed to individual employees, critical stakeholders across the board are now taking up WLB as an important concept and are conscious of the need to mitigate the conflict that confronts the work and life territories through the formulation of policies and appropriate plans of action.
The spill-over model assumes the addition of experiences from the work environment to non-work environment in a way that people perceive the social experience at the environment of work and non-work environment for an individual is effectively boundary-less (Parker and Scott, 1971). From a theoretical viewpoint, spill-over is characterized as positive and negative. The major thrust of positive spill-over is that fulfillment and attainment in one domain are a consequence of positive experiences in another environment (Vijayakumar and Janakiram, 2017). However, the negative spill-over, also known as dissimilar or incongruent in literature, states that work and non-work spheres relate inversely and antithetically (Staines, 1980; Khateeb, 2021). We can also categorized spill-over as vertical and horizontal. The former is the effect that one environment of life has on the neighboring environment such as the affect that JS may have on private life. The latter, which we express, using the realm of hierarchy, is the hierarchical organization of domains of life such as job, family, leisure, and religion, among others. Satisfaction or dissatisfaction in a supporting realm spills over into a superior domain. In the final analysis, since life is the most superior of the domains, it ends up being at the receiving end (Lee et al., 2001).
According to the conflict theory, what makes one fulfilled and gives a sense of achievement in one aspect of life is a consequence of some sacrifice in another aspect of life because there is an assumption that the two domains such as life and work are fundamentally incompatible with each other owing to inherent different norms and requirements. Work-life conflict is “a form of inter-role conflict in which the pressures of the role from the work and family domains are mutually non-harmonious in some respect” (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985). This means that assuming one role becomes more difficult as a result of one’s involvement in other roles. The role theory is the foundation of conflict theory (Powell and Greenhaus, 2009). The scarcity perspective defines the role theory owing to the limited amount of time and energy for individuals to fulfill the obligations of their roles. The scarcity perspective explains the limited quantity of time and energy at the disposal of individuals which the various roles may share. Three conflict categories abound based on time, stress and behavior (Powell and Greenhaus, 2009). Limited time at the worker’s disposal, which constrains his ability to manage the demands of different roles effectively, is the cause of time-based conflicts. When individuals experience irregular shift work and work time not being flexible, it may cause stress-based conflict. Psychological demands of work, interaction fatigue and job burnout are the major causes of strain-based conflict. Lastly, behavior based conflicts are consequences of the exhibition of uncomplimentary behaviors by the demands of the work. Often, such work demands behaviors are not conducive to an individual’s family role and attempting to switch between the two roles becomes a source of conflict (Roy, 2016).
Gragnano et al. (2020) investigated Work–life balance in relation to the importance of work–family and work–health balance and found that that health is as important as family in the WLB. Susanto et al. (2022) investigated the influence of “WLB and JS, on the job performance of the employees of SMEs with family-supportive supervisor behaviors as the moderator. They found that WLB has a positive influence on JS and performance and JS has a partial mediating influence on the relationship between WLB and job performance. Mensah and Adjei (2020) examined WLB the influence of self-reported health among working adults in Europe. They found that work-life conflict had a statistically significant relationship with poor self-reported health among working adults in Europe.
Lunau et al. (2019) studied the influence of Work–life balance and health on well-being in European welfare states. They found that workers compare health is as important as family in the WLB and more of the variation in JS is explained by work-health balance than WLB. Based on the foregoing and the negative spill-over effect of the spill-over theory, the study tested the following null hypotheses:
H01: Devotion to family and employee has no significant influence on employees’ commitment to work.
H02: Devotion to religion has no significant influence on employee’s commitment to work.
H03: Observance of leisure has no significant influence on EMPC to work.
H04: Implementation of health practices have no significant influence on the EMPC.
Delecta (2011) examined WLB from the organizational context and found a statistically significant correlation between long working hours occupational stress. Umma and Zahana (2020) investigated the determinants of WLB among teachers of a government school in Sri Lanka and found a significant negative correlation between workload/childcare and WLB; Otuya and Andeyo (2020) reviewed WLB and conclude that WLB is worth implementing by policymakers. Wijaya and Suwandana (2022) examined the influence of JS and WLB on the job performance of female Nurses to analyze the influence of JS and WLB on their Job Performance and found that WLB has a positive and significant effect on the performance of female nurses. Shouman et al. (2022) investigated WLB and firm innovativeness based on male and female bosses’ strategies. He found that employee WLB has no statistically significant influence on organizational performance.
Abdullah et al. (2022) studied WLB and JS in Chhattisgarh. In addition to the above Berglund et al. (2021) studied the influence of WLB on the predicted work ability of employees in Sweden. Thilagavathy and Geetha (2023) systematically reviewed literature on WLB, Tamunomiebi and Oyibo (2020) systematically reviewed WLB and employee performance and concluded that systemic barriers are hindering implementation of the policies on WLB in Nigeria. Lastly, Beauregard and Lesley (2009) examined how WLB practices relate to organizational performance and concluded that the use of WLB practices would attract individuals to an organization and significantly improve employee attitudes. Given the foregoing, the study tested the following null hypotheses:
Akinlade and Nwaodica (2021) examined work life balance and job satisfaction of employees in an international airport using a mixed method design/. They found that work stress affects the home and quality family life of the employees. Nadhiya and Sareena Umma (2022) studied work-life balance and job satisfaction among academics in Sri Lanka using a cross-sectional survey design. Their findings suggest that work-life balance stimulates job satisfaction among employees. Ethelmary and Nebolisa (2019) investigated work life balance and job satisfaction of selected commercial banks in Nigeria. They used the efforts recovery model as their framework and used a cross-sectional survey design. They analyzed the research data with correlation technique regression techniques. The results revealed that work load pressure, role conflict and family have statistically significant effects on job satisfaction. Babatunde et al. (2020) investigated Work life balance and the performance of academic staff tertiary institutions. The study used a cross-sectional survey design. They found that work flexibility and work environment which served as the indicators of work life balance significantly affect the employees’ performance. Mandagi and Wijono (2023) examined work-Life Balance and job satisfaction of employees using a cross-sectional survey design. They employed Pearson correlation in data analysis. The results of the correlation analysis revealed a strong association between work-life balance and job satisfaction.
Most of the empirical studies used employed review techniques. Apart from the studies of Mas-Machuca et al. (2016), Berglund et al. (2021), Abdullah et al. (2022), Wijaya and Suwandana (2022), and Boakye et al. (2023) that used good inferential test most, of the studies are either reviews of empirical studies or they used weak inferential statistics or inappropriate inferential tests. One of the studies used Chi-square statistic to test for the effect of work-life balance on employee commitment. Babatunde et al. (2020), Akinlade and Nwaodica (2021) as well as Nadhiya and Sareena Umma (2022), used descriptive technique in analyzing their data while Mandagi and Wijono (2023) used Pearson correlation technique to test for significance of data. These tend to cast some measure of doubts on the inferences associated with some of the empirical studies. Two important aspects of life activities ignored by empirical studies are Religion (Delecta, 2011; Mas-Machuca et al., 2016; Hsu et al., 2019; Lunau et al., 2019; Gragnano et al., 2020; Mensah and Adjei, 2020; Otuya and Andeyo, 2020; Khateeb, 2021; Abdullah et al., 2022; Wijaya and Suwandana, 2022; Boakye et al., 2023; Thilagavathy and Geetha, 2023), Leisure (Delecta, 2011; Lunau et al., 2019; Mensah and Adjei, 2020; Otuya and Andeyo, 2020; Susanto et al., 2022; Wijaya and Suwandana, 2022), Family Lunau et al. (2019). The relegation of these two aspects of life activities suggests that these factors are not considered important in the authors’ countries. However, religion and leisure are critical to life in Nigeria and many tribes, including the major tribes accord the two factors priority importance. To this end, a study of work-life balance that neglects religion and leisure is incomplete.
H05: Employee JS does not have any significant influence on work commitment.
H06: Employee JS does not significantly mediate the influence of WLB on EMPC.
The study employed the quantitative research method. The research design is a survey of 344 employees from work communities in South–South and South-West geopolitical regions in Nigeria.
Employees consisting of academic and other staff of private and public Universities were the target population. Specifically, the study selected two Universities from each of the categories as well as employees of four multinational companies in South-west and South–South Nigeria constituted the study population.
The study used Yamane formula in determining the sample size. The Taro Yamane formula took cognisance of a 5 % (5%) margin of error and 4,850 as the total number of employees investigated in the organizations under consideration. Consequently, this resulted in 370 as the sample size of the study shared this 370 to all the work communities proportionately. The researcher sought and elicited all relevant information about the employees from the appropriate authorities of the organizations and used stratified random sampling in selecting respondents for the study. Staff statuses served as the stratification criterion while the lottery technique served as the randomization technique. Based on the sample size, the study requested 370 participants but 344 of them consented. Consequently, the responses of the 344 respondents served as the input to the data analysis. The authors elicited the desired responses with a structured questionnaire which consisted of two sections. The two sections are the demographic section, which consists of the items on the respondents’ biodata, and the section on the items that addressed the research questions with a question-response format of the Likert Scale type.
The study administered the research instrument to the respondents physically in their work settings and retrieved same physically using the services of ad-hoc research assistants. The author chose this method of data collection because of the need to minimize the rate of default coupled with the desire to seek the consent of the participants to participate in the study. This explains why the response rate was as high as 93 % (03%).
The study used one dependent variable (EMPC), one mediating variable (JS) and four independent variables (family, religion, leisure and health). The study used four five-point Likert-scale items to measure three of the independent variables and used five Likert-scale items to measure health. In addition, four Likert-scale items served to measure the mediating variable while five Likert scale items measured the dependent variable.
The study tested the questionnaire for validity and reliability to ensure that the data are usable for the purpose.
The authors used a pilot study of 40 employees from work communities other than the study’s population. The responses elicited from respondents in the pilot test served to compute the study’s convergent and discriminant validities. The study conducted factor analysis from the data and the loadings served to compute the average variance extracted (AVE). The AVE served as a critical component in the computation of the convergent and discriminant validities. The Cut-off of the AVEs for convergent validity is 0.5 (Hair et al., 2009; Wei and Lu, 2013; Cheung S. et al., 2023). All the AVEs computed in the study are more than 0.5, thus establishing convergent validity (See Table 1 ).
| Variable | Convergent validity (AVE) | |
|---|---|---|
| fml | = | 0.803 |
| rel | = | 0.765 |
| .lei | = | 0.502 |
| .hea | = | 0.510 |
| .js | = | 0.617 |
| .empc | = | 0.780 |
After determining the convergent validity, the author also computed the discriminant validity, which requires the computation of the correlation coefficients. The study calculated the correlations and compared them with the square roots of the AVEs. The two validities help to validate a measuring instrument because the convergent validity helps to indicate the extent to which the measure sufficiently corresponds to measures of related constructs. The computed divergent validity indicates the degree to which the items are unrelated or negatively related to measures of distinct constructs. The results show that all the AVEs in the main diagonal are more than the corresponding correlation coefficients below the diagonals. To this end, discriminant validity is established (See Table 1 ; Figure 1 ).